


building castles (speculation) in the sky

by interstellarbeams



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Gen, High School Crush, Identity Reveal, Introspective MJ
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-11 06:25:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11708694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/interstellarbeams/pseuds/interstellarbeams
Summary: Michelle had never really thought of Peter as the type to keep a big secret. (Spiderman: Homecoming through Michelle's eyes)





	building castles (speculation) in the sky

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by Nora ([GreenFish](http://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenFish)) once again. Thanks lovely!
> 
> Thanks for all the comments, kudos and interest in my Spideychelle stories! <3 
> 
> Next up a angsty 'why did we break up when we're still in love with each other?' fic... so be keeping an eye out. ;)

Michelle had never really thought of Peter as the type to keep a _big_ secret. Everything showed on his face -- he was an open book.

Midway through sophomore year he started acting strangely.

\-----

The dropped extracurriculars raised more than just an eyebrow. He used to love marching band and robotics club, never once missing a practice or a match. 

His leg jigged up and down next to hers under the table at Decathlon practices and she was sure he didn’t have to _go_ because he always escaped into the bathroom before they started. He eventually quit the Decathlon team altogether.

\-----

She eyed his increased muscle mass -- the extra strength that he exhibited in gym class, when he couldn't have cared less _before_. Michelle found herself contemplating what he might have done with those larger biceps and triceps. 

She tried and _failed_ to ignore the calf-eyed looks he was sending Liz Allan across the gym. 

_No_ , she thought. _She was not jealous. That would be ridiculous._

\-----

One afternoon in gym, Ned boasted to Liz that Peter knew Spider-Man, like they were all _friends_ or something. Peter tried to retract Ned's comment, and shot Ned a dirty look. 

_Odd_ , Michelle thought. _What was the harm in people knowing about Peter’s acquaintance with Spider-Man? He so clearly wanted to impress Liz with the information. So why was he afraid to admit it?_

Michelle didn’t want anyone to know she was paying very close attention to their conversation, so she hid behind her book.

\---

Michelle saw the bruises that Peter inexpertly tried to hide with too-dark foundation, probably borrowed from his aunt. 

She winced at the sight of his torn-up knuckles: Was he in a fight club? Had he exchanged robotics club for mechanics class? Did he go into a roid rage and punch a brick wall? 

_Steroids would also explain the new muscles._

_No_ , she's not _obsessed_ with him; that would be completely unhealthy.

\-----

At lunch one day, she saw Ned shoving extra portions of food to Peter that he would eat so quickly, she wasn’t sure if he was actually swallowing.

Peter’s eyes were always trained on the clock during their last period of the day -- Ms. Nagasu’s Advanced Economics class -- and he was always the _first_ one out of the classroom; his sneaker-clad feet barely touching the floor before he was gone. 

_Where did he go every afternoon? And why was he always in such a rush? It wasn't as if he was saving the world._

But really it was all of that, plus the missed classes and late arrivals, that had her interest piqued.

She was observant, not _obsessed_. _Honestly._

\-----

Michelle sometimes wished that she wasn't so shy. She had a tendency to become sarcastic or rude when people tried to get too close to her. 

She wanted to get closer to Peter, though: partly because she knew he was hiding something. But mostly because he was one of the only people who accepted her as she was. And although she would never admit it aloud, she _wanted_ him to be her friend.

He sat next to her in Advanced Physics class, the first period of the day, and would yawn continuously, as if he had been up all night. By second period, though, he was jittery and wide awake. She pretended not to notice all the high-sodium, high-sugar energy drinks he was taking down between classes.

_Energy drinks were terrible for you, but who was she to judge?_

Then there was Ned. Ned always seemed to have a disgusting mix of admiration and excitability every time he was around Peter -- which was _all the time_.

She doubted Ned’s worship-complex had anything to do with their lame plans to build Lego Star Wars sets after school, either. There was something more to it.

So yeah - she listened in on their conversations in the hallway. Her locker was right there! _So what?_

\-----

A few weeks later, Peter showed up at Liz’s party (which she just happened to be at - again, _so what?_ ), and Flash, the jerk, was hounding him about Spider-Man. Michelle knew she should just go back to her book and ignore them, but what if there really _was_ something to Ned and Peter's claim to a friendship with the masked superhero? 

Peter seemed nervous. She would be sweating bullets, too - if she actually cared what her peers thought of her.

It wasn’t long before Peter disappeared again - leaving the party without even a ‘goodbye.’ 

This time Ned wasn’t the only disappointed one.

Michelle tried to hide it behind her usual stoicism, but she wasn’t sure if it was working.

Peter wasn’t usually one to ditch his friends. She wanted to think she was one of them, but she wasn’t so sure anymore.

\-----

Ten days after that, Peter announced he wanted to rejoin the Decathlon team, the day before Nationals. Peter begged their faculty advisor for a second chance, and because it was Mr. Harrington, he caved, and Peter was back in.

Flash was, not surprisingly, pissed.

Peter spent half of the bus ride to the competition whispering with Ned, and glancing around the bus as if he expected an attack from a hedge of ninjas at any moment. The other half of the ride was spent fast asleep, his mouth hanging open, with his head resting against the window. 

And _no_ , she doesn't think it's adorable. 

_Well_ , OK. Maybe a little.

\-----

She can't help but watch as Peter single-handedly hefts everyone's luggage out of the back of the bus, including hers, laden with multiple textbooks. (Hey, a girl had to practice, right?)

Was he always so _helpful_? She thought he was: it was one of his dorky, yet endearing qualities.

\-----

When he didn’t show up at the hotel pool that evening, Michelle felt surprisingly crestfallen. She couldn't believe he would pass up a chance to ogle Liz in her swimsuit. 

Michelle spent the rest of her evening harassing Flash at every given opportunity.

She tried to call Peter when he didn’t show up to breakfast the next day, leaving message after message, but apparently the idiot didn’t ever check his messages. Or maybe his phone had fallen into the East River.

Whatever. She’s _worried_ , not obsessed.

\-----

The sudden appearance of Spider-Man at the Washington monument raised another eyebrow or two for her. As far as Michelle knew, he normally patrolled Queens and the surrounding boroughs. 

So what was he doing in D.C.? Did this have something to do with Peter? Had Peter called in Spider-Man?

Spider-Man’s face was covered, but his voice, while deep, seemed strangely familiar. 

After Spider-Man managed to save her friends lives and dozens of others, during a suspicious attack in Washington D.C., she found her view on the eponymous superhero softening, particularly after watching how he had so boldly risked his life for the safety of others.

_If only more people cared as much as Spider-Man._

She couldn’t help but wonder what Peter had to do with it, if anything.

\---

Michelle tried to forget about it. She tried to go back to the way it was before, when she would read her novels during lunch period, and only notice Peter when he and his sidekick became a little too rambunctious, and destroyed the calm of her literary sanctuary. 

But she _couldn’t_.

After his random disappearing act in D.C. - which he had no rational explanation for - he started acting more like himself again, for the most part.

But when he arrived at detention later that week, she could see the melancholy hanging over him. Peter’s head was propped in his arms, and he stared up at the clock above the whiteboard. 

He looked deflated.

OK, so she didn’t _technically_ have detention, but she liked to spend her free time there.

_So what? Like it was a crime to be in detention when you didn’t actually have detention?_

She used the time to work on her artistic skills -- her drawings weren’t going to get any better without practice and genuine human emotion. 

Michelle wondered what had caused such a dramatic change in Peter. Just a few weeks ago, he had so much energy, he couldn't stay still for even one Decathlon practice. Now, he was moping around like someone had pissed on his favorite Iron Man sheets.

When the teacher stepped out of the room, Michelle leaned over to ask Peter if he wanted to study in the library for a few afternoons a week. She actually considered tutoring to be one of her talents. 

_So what? It just happened that she had noticed his declining grades -- that wasn't a crime, either!_

He agreed to meet with her. 

Frankly, she felt surprised. He hadn’t shown interest in anything else regarding school lately. Why did he want to do this with her?

_No need to look a gift horse in the mouth, she reminded herself._

\-----

They started meeting in the library on Tuesday afternoons. She would bring her mug full of tea and watched him scribble -- and _she meant scribble_ \-- in his notebooks. 

_Who did this boy learn penmanship from? A ER doctor?_

The thing was - he was technically brilliant. He could literally solve a complicated math equation in minutes without writing down _any_ work. When she quizzed him on their American History homework, he didn’t get a single answer wrong. He could recite two page passages from Shakespeare from memory.

In the end, she decided to give him a pass on his horrendous handwriting. 

The problem was that he seemed unfocused a lot of the time, like someone with ADD. At other times he wouldn’t show up to the library at all, leaving her pissed and strangely worried.

\-----

One day, she finally snapped. She couldn’t hold in the questions any longer. 

“I know you aren't a _moron_ , Parker, but you sure are _acting_ like one. What is going on with you?”

“Wha--?” His head jerked up suddenly and he stared at her, confused. “What did you say?”

“I said, what's going _on_ with you?” she asked again, irritated.

“Nothing,” he blurted out almost immediately.

She eyed him suspiciously. She knew he was lying, but she didn’t know why. 

“Nevermind,” she replied blithely, before bending her head back over her textbook.

She could still feel his eyes on her, like a thought teasing at the corner of her mind, but she didn’t look up. She was sure he knew she didn’t believe him, but she also didn’t want to press it anymore. He didn’t want to talk, so what could she do?

Later when she was sitting at her desk at home, she thought about his initial reaction. 

_Why was he acting so jumpy? What was going on with him?_

\-----

Despite his constant distractions and random disappearances, Peter still managed to ask Liz Allan to Homecoming. 

Michelle wanted to scoff and roll her eyes like she normally would, but instead she felt like going home and indulging in a good cry.

_Why_ , she wondered. 

_Why should she care who Peter went to Homecoming with?_

_Well, she wasn’t going to think about that, just now._

\-----

When Michelle spotted Peter’s frantic, wide-eyed gaze as he followed Liz into the crowded gym -- his glance barely resting on her and Ned before it shifted away -- Michelle felt something like anticipation wilt in her chest. She did the first thing that came to mind: she flipped him off. 

He barely seemed to notice, much to her annoyance, because he was too busy mooning over Liz. 

Less than a minute passed before she saw Peter running back out the gym door, his red and blue striped tie trailing over his shoulder.

_Who did he think he was, blowing them off? Blowing them all off._

Michelle felt pissed.

That was, until Ned disappeared as well. Suddenly, she felt curious again. _What were those two up to?_

This time, she knew it had nothing to do with Nintendo Wii games or boy sleepovers.

She stealthily trailed Ned to the computer lab, his tan fedora hard to miss, and snuck a peek through the window, as he rolled across the floor between two computers. His voice, muffled and difficult to hear through the door, echoed in the almost-empty room.

Michelle heard something about being happy... and Mr. Stark… _the Stark internship maybe? Did he get rehired?_

It was definitely suspicious. She wasn’t sure what to make of it. 

After a few seconds of crouching in front of the door, she hears footsteps in the hall behind her, and ducked around a corner, not wanting to be discovered. 

The click of the heels continues down the hallway before coming to a stop in front of the doorway that she had just been crouching in front of.

Peering around the corner of the wall of lockers, she spots Mrs. Nagasu opening the door of the computer lab. _Shit,_ Ned’s about to get caught, she thought, clasping her hands over her mouth to stifle a snort of amusement.

“Mr. Leeds, why aren’t you at the dance?” Mrs. Nagasu’s voice floated down the hall.

“Um-- uh, uh, I was watching porn?” He replied, his voice raising on the last syllable like he’s asking a question.

Michelle’s mouth dropped open, _what the hell. Disgusting._

Laughter suddenly echoed in the empty hallway, _Time to go_ , she thought, and left the way she had come, nonchalantly. 

\-----

On Monday, the rumor mill was on overdrive -- in the girl’s locker room it was the usual stuff: who made out with whom at the dance, who had gotten some, who had broken up. Basically what she expected to hear the Monday after a big dance. 

But there was bigger news afoot.

It was all around the school that Ned had been watching porn in the computer lab during Homecoming and was _caught_.

Michelle would have been remiss and a complete failure of a high schooler if she hadn't have spread that _news_ around, but she still wondered who had he been talking to? _Mr. Stark_ , he’d said. She had heard it. Ned had been talking to _someone_.

Peter showed up at school that Monday as well.

It was all over school that Liz’s father was being indicted for alien weapons trafficking, and that Spider-Man had a hand in apprehending him on the beach at Coney Island. 

Michelle had been at her locker that morning, retrieving a textbook that she had left behind, accidentally. _No_ , she hadn’t left it behind on purpose. How could she have known that Peter would be talking to Liz in the hallway at the same exact time?

She had stopped with her hand on her locker, ready to slam the door closed when she heard the sound of voices. Liz’s was as familiar to her as her own, due to multiple Decathlon practices, despite the stuffiness that pointed to the tears that she was most likely shedding.

Peter’s voice was typically fervent and sincerely apologetic but the tone was infinitely more guilty than usual.

_What did the dork have to apologize for, it’s not like he was involved with Liz’s father’s arrest and imprisonment?_

_What wasn't suspicious about this kid?_

\-----

Peter tried to skip out of the Decathlon Team’s meeting in the library, almost as soon as he arrived. A guilty look crossed his face when Michelle called him out on it, but he still managed to slip out when she wasn’t looking.

She was the new Team Leader. It was her duty to keep them in order. She just wished she knew how to pin Peter down.

In her frustration, Michelle decided to make a list. She pulled out the notebook she had hidden in the extra locker she’d bought off a capitalistic freshman for five bucks. All she had to do was change the combo, and voila - _secret hiding spot_.

Crouched on the floor in front of a row of lockers, Michelle wrote:

**Reasons Peter Parker is a idiot, a very suspicious person and maybe a superhero** :  
1\. Consistent disheveled appearance / late arrivals and early departures / disappearances at random times  
2\. Recent increased muscle mass and increase in appetite.  
3\. The Stark Internship (Didn't Spider-Man fight as a part of the battle that tore apart the Avengers? He had stood on Iron Man’s side and everyone knew that Tony Stark was Iron Man. He never hid that fact, the pretentious bastard.)  
4\. His disappearance at Nationals in D.C. and the sudden appearance of Spider-Man, who in turn saved the Decathlon team.

She tapped her pencil against her chin, thoughts swirling as she tried to make sense of the evidence.

Peter disappeared at the hotel that morning in D.C., and didn't show up again until that afternoon, when they were getting ready to head back on the bus. No one, not even Ned -- with his flimsy excuses and cover ups -- could explain Peter's disappearance. Or that _voice_.

Spider-Man’s voice had sounded _so familiar_. Peter’s voice got deeper when he was sick, she knew -- usually it was a little high pitched and nasally, but when he had that head cold last year, his voice had been throatier.

_Just like Spider-Man’s._

Could nerdy, helpful, easy-to-please Peter Parker _really_ be Spider-Man?

_Maybe._

Extra muscular, always disappearing, bruised up Peter Parker could very well be Spider-Man.

_Shit! What a fucking liar!_

\-----

A few weeks later, she found the perfect opportunity to blow Peter's cover -- privately, of course.

It was late afternoon, after decathlon practice, and for some mysterious reason that was beyond her, Peter had stayed behind. 

_Didn't he have lost pets to find and criminals to antagonize instead?_ She thought.

She didn't want to be subjected to his impressive musculature, floppy curls and dorky grin any longer than she had to. 

Peter, apparently, had other ideas.

Michelle grappled with the idea of leaving and letting the cleaning staff put the chairs and tables away. But her conscience wouldn't allow it.

Cursing under her breath, she gathered together their supplies and stuffed them into her tote bag.

Shoving her hair out of her face for the umpteenth time that day she started stacking the chairs, one after the other. Peter stood across from her, back turned, as he took down the few tables that they had used.

It happened when she was placing the sixth chair on top of the stack and it got stuck, the legs were crooked and it wasn't sitting straight. “ _Shit_ ,” Michelle cursed, out loud, _if one more thing goes wrong today_. She tried to pull it free, so she could settle it correctly, jerking at the chair unnecessarily in aggravation.

Suddenly, the stack started to topple forward and she cringed and shrunk backwards, at the thought of the pain _and_ embarrassment that would follow once the stack of heavy, metal chairs fell on her.

Peter was there, in a moment, startling her as he stopped the stack’s momentum with one hand while shoving her out of the way, impressively, a few feet across the gym floor.

Peter shifted the stack and it settled, as Michelle gaped at him. She had totally seen him scale the Washington Monument in D.C. with her own two eyes and noticed the muscles that had cropped up, seemingly overnight, but to see him use his amazing power in such close proximity had her mesmerized.

_Stupid Peter and his stupid hero complex._

Peter came closer, his forehead creased in concern, “Are you okay?”

“Oh, yeah -- fine. Thanks, Parker.” She added dryly, “You're my hero.”

Peter blushed, but helped her set the rest of the room to rights.

“Okay,” Michelle dusted off her hands, and pulled her shirt down, where it had ridden up, “I think that about does it.”

“Uh-- good, good,” Peter stumbled over his words, his brown eyes wide and staring. 

_What was he staring at?_

“ _Well_ , I guess I’ll see you in first period tomorrow. Don't forget about that quiz!” Michelle grabbed up her tote bag and headed for the door.

“See ya, Spidey!” She flipped him off, before turning her head to hide a satisfied smirk. 

Leaving Peter standing there with a gaping, shocked look.

_Serves him right_ , Michelle thought, smiling slightly at the thought of his adorably bewildered face.


End file.
